US and Afghan forces have targeted al Qaeda operatives in at least three Afghan provinces in recent weeks. One of the jihadists killed has been identified as Omar Khetab, the deputy leader of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Khetab and other AQIS operatives have been supporting the Taliban’s insurgency.
The Taliban is touting the defection of Mullah Abdul Razzaq Mehdi, the purported “deputy” of the Islamic State’s Wilayah Khorasan. The Taliban is using his testimony to undermine the will of its jihadist rivals inside Afghanistan. But in so doing, the group reveals just how similar the two often are.
A jihadist known as Abu Abdullah has responded to claims made by a senior Hay’at Tahrir al Sham figure. Abu Abdullah identifies himself as al Qaeda’s “external communication officer,” a previously undisclosed position, and says that al Qaeda’s senior leaders are able to communicate with their representatives around the globe on an “almost daily” basis.
The jihad in Syria has unleashed another leadership crisis for al Qaeda.
“We are very happy with this work of the Taliban,” Herat’s director of education said after noting that 219 of the province’s 969 schools are controlled by the Taliban. He admitted that five districts are off limits to education officials.
“Pakistan’s resolve, actions and successes in the fight against terrorism, terrorist violence and terrorists is unmatched in the world,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the day after Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed was freed from house arrest.
The US military and Afghan Air Force hit a Taliban command and control center and seven “drug labs” in what was described as “previously un-targeted safe havens in the South and Southwest” Afghanistan.
The Iraqi Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba has posted photos of its Iranian commander, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani, inspecting positions near Al Bukamal in Syria near the Iraqi border.
In recent years, Iran has stepped up its support for various Shia militant groups in the small Sunni-led kingdom. This support has been noted by both Bahraini and American officials.
Coalition forces killed 15 senior and mid-level Islamic State leaders and commanders, including two external operations planners, in a series of airstrikes that have taken place in eastern Syria and Western Iraq over the past two months.
The US has stepped up its air campaign on the Islamic State’s network in Yemen as the group has intensified its attacks on Yemeni security forces in the alternate capital of Aden.
The US military continues to intensify its air campaign in Somalia against Shabaab and its rival, the Islamic State.
The video serves as an important reminder of Shabaab’s continual potent threat against both African Union and Somali forces inside Somalia.
The US military has now targeted Shabaab forces using airstrikes at least 14 times this year. Shabaab has continued to threaten the Somali capital despite the increased US targeting.
The Taliban released video of its forces entering the Fanduqistan Valley in Afghanistan’s central province of Parwan after Afghan forces retreated.
In a newly released audio message, Hamza bin Laden praises his father for spreading jihadism and attacking the US. Hamza calls on Muslims to rise up against “tyrant” rulers and wage jihad until sharia is imposed. The message was posted online just days after the CIA released a video from Hamza’s wedding. The video was recovered in Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound.
For the first time in eight years, the DoD has classified assigned strength data used to measure Afghan casualties and attrition rates, as well as details on the operational readiness of US-supplied weapons, vehicles and supplies.
The US military launched its first airstrike against the Islamic State’s network in the eastern African country of Somalia earlier today, complementing a decade long air campaign against Shabaab, al Qaeda’s branch in the country.
The Syrian military has taken full control of Deir Ezzour, while Iraqi troops and Iranian supported militias ejected the Islamic State from Al Qaim.
The CIA has released Osama bin Laden’s handwritten, 228-page journal, which is available to the public in this post.
The CIA is releasing hundreds of thousands of documents, images, and computer files recovered during the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The newly-available material provides invaluable insights into the terrorist organization that struck America on September 11, 2001.
The US has released a video from Hamza bin Laden’s wedding, providing a more recent image of Osama’s heir than was previously available. The video was recovered during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011. FDD’s Long War Journal assesses that the wedding likely took place inside Iran, where Hamza was detained until being released sometime in 2010.
The Afghan government’s ability to control its territory has “deteriorated” as the Taliban has gained control of additional districts, according to SIGAR. This tracks with an analysis of Afghanistan’s districts conducted by FDD’s Long War Journal, which tracks Taliban controlled and contested districts.
The IJU joins a list of jihadist groups that have publicized its training camps inside Afghanistan, including the Taliban, the Turkistan Islamic Party, and the Imam Bukhari Jamaat.
training camp joins similar training camps in Afghanistan advertised by the Taliban, the Turkistan Islamic Party, Imam Bukhari Jamaat, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen and others.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters in the western province of Farah paraded their vehicles and then stood in formation for a lengthy period of time, without fear of being targeted by Afghan or Coalition forces, to listen to an official give a speech recently.
Two suicide car bombs were detonated in Mogadishu earlier today. The twin attacks were carried out just two weeks after a massive bombing killed more than 300 people.
An estimated 60 Islamic State fighters are thought to have been killed in three US strikes that have targeted the group over the past two weeks.
The US Treasury Department and several Gulf States announced today that eight jihadists in Yemen have been designated as terrorists. The newly-sanctioned terrorists serve either the Islamic State’s Yemeni branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or both.
Afghan forces account for just one percent of the total number of foreign military personnel trained in the US since 2005, but account for nearly 50 percent of the AWOL cases in the same time frame.
Omar Khalid Khurasani, who was reported to have died on Oct. 19 after a US drone strike, is alive. However, he confirmed the death of Khalifa Umar Mansour, the group’s military leader who was killed in a US airstrike back in Afghanistan in July 2016.